The high-flying Dow Jones industrial average closed above 16,000 for the first time on Thursday.

Fueled by low interest rates, which are chasing investor cash searching for more sizeable returns into equities, the Dow is up 22.2 percent this year.

The S&P 500 just missed its first-ever close above 1,800. It is up 25.9 percent this year.

“If you have an economy that’s strengthening with low inflation and a friendly [Federal Reserve], it’s just a recipe for further gains in stock prices,” said Joseph LaVorgna, chief US economist at Deutsche Bank.

Indeed, most market specialists are betting that the stock market has a lot more room to run.

That’s despite being just five years removed from a financial crisis that brought the markets to its knees.

The Dow closed Thursday at 16,009.99, up 0.7 percent. The S&P rose 0.8 percent to 1,795.85.

On average, observers believe that the Fed will remain fairly prudent in scaling back an $85 billion bond-buying program, which has helped to keep short-term interest rates at historically low levels and driven return-hungry investors into stocks.

“The more the Fed emphasizes they are going to keep short-term rates down, the better that it is for the market,” noted Maury Harris, chief economist at UBS.

Although some investors have expressed worries that the markets’s ebullience is getting perilously close to a bubble, others think the economy is demonstrating genuine signs of improvement.

“Corporate earnings have come in better than expected and housing prices are rising for the first time in half a decade,” Harris noted.